Illegal Immigrants Pay More Taxes Than Many Top U.S. Corporations

PoliticsUSA notes the disparity between what major American corporations pay in taxes, and the burden on the backs of undocumented workers.

Apparently you can be a citizen, as the Supreme Court recently ruled corporations are, yet pay no taxes. The Tea Party cries about “class warfare” and “redistribution of wealth” but both of those are more than acceptable as long as they’re not aimed at the wealthy or at corporations. It is on our backs – average American citizens – that the weight must fall.

At the same time, we’re being told that immigrants are (warning: National Socialist comparison here) parasites, a danger to the health of the country. These people, we are assured – these brown people – are not only an infection we must fight off but they’re freeloaders, sucking the wealth out of our country, receiving our money as entitlements while they wile away the hours apparently relaxing and enjoying themselves…

According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (itepnet.org), undocumented workers paid billions in state and local taxes last year. GE, remember, paid NOTHING. Though conservatives will likely put ITEP alongside FactCheck and PolitiFact as liberal propaganda machines, ITEP is, as the NY Daily News reports, “a prestigious, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that works on federal, state and local tax policy issues.”

1. Exxon Mobil’s 2009 profits totaled $19 billion, yet according to its SEC filings, the company received a $156 million rebate from the IRS plus it didn’t pay any federal taxes.

2. Bank of America made $4.4 billion in profits last year. This was after it received a $1 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS.

3. General Electric has made $26 billion in profits in the United States over the past five years. It’s also received a $4.1 billion tax refund from the IRS. GE has cut a fifth of its American jobs in the past nine years, and is boosting jobs overseas – where tax rates are lower. And where it can continue evading U.S. taxes.

4. Chevron’s IRS refund last year totaled $19 million but it’s 2009 profits came to a whopping $10 billion.

5. Boeing received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers. It also received a $124 million refund from the IRS.

6. Valero Energy made $68 billion in sales and received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS. Over the past three years, it has received a $134 million tax break thanks to the oil and gas manufacturing tax reduction.

7. Goldman Sachs paid 1.1% of its 2009 income in taxes. Yet it made a profit of $2.3 billion. And guess how much it received from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department? $800 billion.

8. Citigroup profits last year totaled more than $4 billion. But it paid zero dollars in federal income tax, and received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9. ConocoPhillips profits from 2007 through 2009 totaled $16 billion. But it was still awarded $461 million in tax arrears because of the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10. Carnival Cruise Lines is apparently getting pretty good business. Its profits over the past five years totaled more than $1.1 billion. It’s federal income tax rate, however, came to just 1.1%.